What Happens to Your Data When You Die?
What happens after we die? We know the body is left behind, but from ancient times there are myriad views on what happens to the soul, spirit, or mojo. One thing the ancients didn’t have to think about was remnants of a digital life. Who inherits your Bitcoin wallet, or your Facebook profile? What do you do with digital assets that you want passed down to your heirs?
Kaspersky researchers Dan Demeter and Macro Preuss delved deeply into this subject and presented their findings at the RSA Conference in San Francisco.
Preuss is deputy director of GReAT, Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team. Established in 2008, the team has over 40 members—including Demeter, a senior security researcher—and focuses on Advanced Persistent Threats, critical infrastructure threats, financial threats, and sophisticated targeted attacks.
Who really owns your data? How is ownership defined? “Unlike physical properties like lands, or a car, [ownership of] data is not clearly defined,” said Demeter. “We might have some laws about intellectual property rights, but for data it’s not clear.”
Inheritance of digital assets is likewise unclear. “It’s very easy for you to inherit your parents’ house,” noted Demeter. “There are rules, there are procedures, everything is set in stone. What about inheritance of digital data? Well, this has never been done before. We didn’t find any clear rules about how to inherit somebody else’s data.”
“Data can reside in multiple countries, in multiple locations, and duplicates of this data can exist at the same time,” said Demeter. “Furthermore, you can almost instantly transfer data from a location in Europe to one in America. Just like that, bam, I moved my data.” He pointed out that any solution to digital
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